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Before his 17th NBA season, Horace Grant arrived again, gathering a chair beneath him amid the calm and Indian feathers of Phil Jackson’s office, this time in El Segundo.

It was late Wednesday morning, still three weeks before training camp. Jackson had recently come in from Montana, Grant from Orlando, old friends having more in common by the day. Grant keeps wandering off -- he left Jackson’s Chicago Bulls in 1994, then Jackson’s Lakers two years ago -- only to return again, this time at 38, as front-court depth, his contract not fully guaranteed, his left knee, he says, fully healed.

They keep finding each other, Jackson usually down a power forward or two in the broad-shouldered Western Conference, Grant this time in search of a new job and a fresh lifestyle. For more than an hour, they talked about their lives and these Lakers, of the defensive assignment ahead of Grant and the massive task ahead of Jackson and the season that promises, at the very least, to show them things they’ve never seen before.

Later, over lunch in the Bel-Air hotel that will serve as his temporary home while he awaits shipments of cars and furniture and three German shepherds from Florida, Grant said it was both strange and comforting, how they kept rediscovering one another, particularly considering their occasional clashes early in their careers in Chicago.

“Phil’s got this magnetic personality that you can’t get away from,” he said, laughing. “I could be in Timbuktu and Phil’s energy would draw me back to this place.”

Grant calls him P.J. P.J. calls Grant when he needs him, this time after the acquisitions of Karl Malone and Gary Payton to go alongside Shaquille O’Neal and, presumably, Kobe Bryant.

“When we found out we were going to have so many 20-point-plus scorers on the team this season, we knew we needed to get a defense-minded player,” Jackson said Thursday. “We needed someone who could guard guys like [Tim] Duncan and [Chris] Webber, and my first thought was Horace Grant.

“Horace has the experience and has played with us before.... He has a tremendous work ethic and has the ability to get to the boards, and we’re going to need someone like that this year.”

After a single season in Los Angeles, 2000-01, when he averaged 8.5 points and 7.1 rebounds for the championship team, Grant left for what he believed to be one final contract, for two years and an option for a third with the Orlando Magic. He was sure he would leave the court then after two seasons, live as the earnest bachelor in Orlando, maybe stay in basketball, maybe not.

Instead, he sat before Jackson on Wednesday hopeful for another season or two, his mansion in Orlando for sale, his time with the Magic having become a mess professionally, if not personally.

Grant was married in June to Andrea, a former schoolteacher from Santa Barbara. They met during his season with the Lakers; she was kind and spiritually sound, and he was slack-jaw hooked. Together, they will rear her 5-year-old daughter, Naomi, as theirs, soon in a home they’ve rented in Brentwood, eventually, he said, in Santa Barbara.

In the months that Horace and Andrea drew closer, however, Horace and his organization drifted apart, primarily because of his relationship with Magic Coach Doc Rivers.

“Doc and I don’t have a relationship,” Grant corrected.

A year ago, Grant had the knee surgery he said the organization had insisted he have or be fined, recovered slowly, tangled with Rivers and Tracy McGrady, then, having played in only five games, was released Dec. 11. Grant and Rivers hadn’t been close in years, Grant irked that Rivers had not afforded him the respect due a veteran player, and Rivers miffed that Grant’s lack of deference undermined his authority.

It appeared that the coolness between Rivers and Grant splashed over onto McGrady, who became upset over a seemingly benign quote attributed to Grant regarding McGrady’s defensive commitment. That minor spat turned into Grant and Rivers’ confronting one another in the aisle of an airplane. They were separated before a blow was thrown that night, and then for good the next day, when Grant was released.

Since, Grant has blamed Rivers’ ego, Rivers has blamed Grant for making him the villain, and now they are 3,000 miles apart, which seems about right.

Still angry with Rivers but satisfied that McGrady believes it was Rivers, and not Grant, who was the instigator in their three-way fuss, Grant shook his head at how it all crumbled, then momentarily dismissed the disappointment of it.

“I thought it would end in Orlando,” Grant said. “I was going to be 38 or 39, over with, and then I’d concentrate on my family. God had another situation for me to be in. I wouldn’t want to go out like that. Absolutely not. I would have played for the Afghanistan Giants, if they had a team. I just wanted to play basketball again. This situation came up, thank God for Phil and everybody who wanted me back.”

The plan now is to play out his career with the Lakers, put the conflicts with the Magic and Rivers behind him, then retire to a place where ocean views fill picture windows.

Even his contract -- for $1.1 million but only half guaranteed because of the knee surgery that in part kept him from rejoining the Lakers late last season -- would not diminish Grant’s enthusiasm. Not after he’d sat with Jackson, after they’d promised each other another run at a title, this time riding what could be one of the most decorated starting lineups in league history. Indeed, it was Jackson, wary of the potential defensive load on the 40-year-old Malone, who insisted on adding Grant, Jackson who pulled Grant into his office for their first conversation of substance in two years.

“It was great,” Grant said. “It was a feeling I had my first year here. It was comfortable. I felt like I could trust him.... If you’re fat, he’ll tell you you’re fat. If you’re ugly, he’ll tell you you’re ugly.... You will know where you stand.

“He’s a straight-up guy. That’s what I admire about him and that’s why I didn’t hesitate on the partial guarantee here.

“There’s no way I’m not going to make this team. Phil knows me as a player and a person.

“And if I wasn’t healthy, I wouldn’t put my name on the dotted line.”